Hi, crafty friend! I'm so excited for the newest 3 Girls Tale collection from Prima, Twinkle & Treats! If you loved The Home Baker, you'll love this collection. And while this collection does have some cute baking scenes and a little baker elf mould, I chose to focus on the twinkly wonderland part of this collection first. 

I love snowy scenes--I live in Colorado and my Oma (grandmother) was from Austria, so winter wonderlands are second nature to me. The house shadow box I used was from Target's dollar spot several years ago, but I have placed a similar option from Amazon below in my supply list--which of course has everything you need to recreate this project!

Let's get started!

First, if you have a vignette box that needs painting, prime it with gesso and then give it a good coat of paint in the color of your choice. My box was already white so I was good to go. Pro Tip: You could always use Finn's White Gesso to kill two birds with one stone. 

Trace out your house shape on your background paper--I used the winter tree paper from the 6x8 Paper Pad from the Twinkle & Treats collection. If your paper is just a tiny bit too short for your box, you can cover up the area with pop outs and a snow bank, so don't worry! 

Measure the width of the sides of your box and measure this out on your paper, drawing lines to account for that width. Then use some scissors to cut out this inner box shape. This should fit inside your shadow box with no or minimal adjustments. 

Then trace your shadow box again on another piece of patterned paper from the collection for the back side of your shadowbox. I selected a pretty green paper for this. Then cut this out with your scissors.

Paint Finn's Soft Matte Gel on the inside back of the box and place your winter tree scene inside. To help press the paper firmly in place, I recommend using some tools that will help you get into the crevices and corners of your box. Then flip your box over and glue the other paper on to the back of your box in the same way. I used a brayer to help me press this paper into place. 

Take another of the winter tree paper out of your pad and fussy cut around the trees and snowbank in the foreground. This will create a pop out. Cut a strip of white cardstock to the inside width of your box. Then flip your strip 90 degrees and trim it to 1 inch, score at 1/2 inch, and fold on the scoreline. 

Use some liquid glue to adhere the fussy cut foreground trees and snowbank on one of the tabs. Then glue this tab to the bottom inside of your box with Soft Matte Gel. 

Pick out one of the houses from the Sticker Sheet set in this collection and trim a strip to the width of the house. Flip it 90 degrees and trim the strip to 3/4 inches, score at 1/4 inch in on one side, and fold on the scoreline. Attach the house to the 1/2 inch tab. I didn't line the bottom of my house up with the scoreline, but popped it up a little bit. Then use liquid glue to adhere the house to the inside bottom of your shadowbox behind the trees. Pro Tip: to get rid of the stickiness on the back of a sticker, brush a little baby powder on it after you've adhered it to your strip. 

Using some of the stars and the light string from the Sticker Sheet Set, pop them onto the background using some foam adhesive for a bit of dimension. 

Prepare your micro light by cutting out 2 to 3 vellum circles. If you want a blue cast to your light, color one of the circles with a blue alcohol ink marker, like a Copic marker. Then glue these vellum circles over the light with some liquid glue. 

Use some paper clay to build up a snowbank in front of your popped out trees. Use your fingers or some the ball end of some shaping tools to help you achieve a natural shape to your snowbank. Wetting your paper clay will also help if it's a little dry. 

Press your elf, reindeer and Santa Twinkle and Treats Mould casts into the paper clay to create some indents for their feet and hooves before the clay dries. Then set it aside to dry while you paint your moulds.

I used white resin for the Twinkle & Treats Mould and Redesign Casting Mix for the Regal Flourish mould that decorates the sides of my shadowbox. You can use one or both like I did--I just needed the Twinkl & Treats casts to set quickly so I could start working on this project asap. The nice thing about the Casting Mix is you don't need to prime the mould casts at all--it's porous and ready to paint! So if you use resin for your moulds, paint them with a bit of Finn's gesso first--I used the clear, but you can also use the white.

Then paint your moulds with Art Philosophy Watercolors. I used colors from The Classics and Vintage Pastel confections sets. The brushes I used were a round #6 and round #2. I highly recommend the Callia brushes by Willow Wolfe--they are fantastic and clean up so easily! I've linked them below for you. After the moulds are dry, add some gold details with a gold paint pen and highlight some of the texture with a very light dry brushing of Finn's Old White Matte Wax. 

If you are new to using watercolors for painting moulds, I recommend checking out my tutorial on doing detailed mould cast paint jobs with watercolor. I've got my full video tutorial embedded in the blog post so you can see it in action.

Once the paper clay is dry in your shadowbox, apply Finn's Snowflake Paste with a paintbrush. Avoid the little divots you created for your moulds. Pop some white Memory Hardware Pearls into your snow and sprinkle on an extra dose of glitter--I used the chunky iridescent one from Finn's Winter glitter set. Pro Tip: place some of the pearls directly behind the feet indents for the elf and Santa--they can be a little "top heavy" when free standing and this will give the mould something to help support them a bit more. 

Stick your moulds in place using a bit of Finn's Heavy Body Gel on one foot or set of hooves and some hot glue on the other foot/hooves and press them into place. (The Gel is for long-lasting hold and the hot glue is for instant hold so you don't have to hold them or prop them up until dry.) I added a wee bit more of the snowflake paste and glitter around their feet/hooves so that it looks more natural and you can cover up any spots you missed earlier. Don't forget a pinch more of the glitter!

Let this adhesive dry fully before moving on! I let this sit overnight so I wasn't tempted. 

Now let's decorate the sides of the house! I glued the bits of the Regal Flourish mould that I painted to look like a green and white candy cane to the sides of my shadowbox. I used a combination of hot glue and Heavy Body Gel. 

For my box, the "Walking in a Winter Wonderland" Chipboard Sticker from the Twinkle & Treats collection was a perfect fit--size and theme! I used some Heavy Body Gel to adhere it to the box. 

Along the roofline of this vignette box, I added some dangly white lace that mimics icicles, gluing it in place with hot glue. Then I added some light blue pom pom trim, because they sort of look like Christmas lights. 

One one side of the top of the roof, I added a cluster of the Twinkle & Treats flowers. I used the one of the Snowy Cotton sprigs, one of the Evergreen Sprigs, a medium sized flower and gold branch sprig from the Twinkle Poinsettias flower set, and 2 of the poinsettias from the Frosted Petals flower set. I added a bit of the Snowflake Paste to the flower cluster and the roof of the shadowbox and sprinkled on some more of that Glitter. The finishing touch was a couple of the champagne gold gems from the Say It In Crystals set. 

To light this shadowbox up, I simply twist the micro light to turn on the light and place it behind the snowy trees--a set of tweezers helps, you can hold the house flat and set it on the background then stand the house up to slide the light down into place. To turn it off, simply rotate your house so the light slides out to take it out and turn it off! I like this because there is no need to drill a hole or house a battery pack--which is a good solution for those of you that don't like playing with power tools like a Dremel or other drill. 

I hope you enjoyed this tutorial and that it inspires you to create a little shadow box scene with the new Twinkle & Treats collection! Should I do a baking scene next? Until next time, happy crafting!

Adrienne

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Below are products that I used for this project.